News

New York Times releases official crossword app

By Charles Starrett ● Monday, March 16, 2009

The New York Times Crosswords Daily 2009 has been released on the App Store. Developed by Magmic, the game allows users to play the daily puzzle from the New York Times print newspaper, as well as over 4,000 classic puzzles from the Times’ archive. Other features include the ability to send messages and compare solve times with friends online, an option to listen to the in-game soundtrack or music from the iPod app, the choice to write in “pen” or “pencil,” and more. The New York Times Crosswords Daily 2009 is available now and sells for $10.

Comments

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The “crosswords” app ($10) does this already, AND allows you to access a bunch of other free crosswords (anything in the .puz format), plus a lot of paid access crossword sites. The free content includes the NYT classic collection of 4000 referred to above. No affiliation, just pointing out that this app would appear to be rather restrictive (i.e. only one set of crosswords) by comparison. They also offer a free trail version.

Posted by Dopial on March 16, 2009 at 1:01 PM (CDT)

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The title of this app makes me wonder if I’ll have to pay to update to the 2010 version.

Posted by Doug on March 16, 2009 at 9:03 PM (CDT)

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Dopial, thank you so much for putting that info out there. I was all set to download the NYT app but then I looked over Crosswords’ info page and was really pleased to discover what a great app it is. I downloaded it without hesitation—thanks for the tip!

Posted by Flippy Hambone on March 17, 2009 at 10:26 AM (CDT)

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I really enjoy the USA Today crosswords app. They’re not too difficult and you get the Quick Cross games as well. The community aspect of the NYT Crosswords app looks a nice feature.

Posted by Galley on March 17, 2009 at 12:15 PM (CDT)

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According to the info on the iTunes Store, the app only gives you access until the end of 2009. Can you guys look into that and confirm? If so, it’s a bit of a bait and switch… It’s cheaper than subscribing to the puzzles on the web, granted, but saying you have 4,000 puzzles is slightly exaggerated, because no one could do 4,000 puzzles between now and the end of the year.

Posted by Kirk McElhearn on March 17, 2009 at 12:37 PM (CDT)

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For many, this was the ONLY reason to buy the Times.
Hope it makes up for all their lost paper-buyers.

Posted by slb on March 17, 2009 at 2:01 PM (CDT)

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The “Crosswords” app on the appstore does NOT let you play daily or archived puzzles from the New York Times. You need a completely seperate subscription. So for $10 for a year ($40 value) the New York Times Crossword is a much better deal.

You can also download any of the already published puzzles with this app (I’m still working on Monday puzzles).

Finally the navigation and input system is way better than the rest of the apps on the app store. Especially related clues (when a clues says “see 34-down” this app actually highlights 34-down).